9

A relative of mine has a small surface swimming pool for kids filled with 5000 liters of water. Now that summer is ending I would like to remove it and put it inside. I don't want to waste water. This is still the dry season and the water is useful. Not to mention that it is a resource that shouldn't be wasted. Is it safe to use the treated water?

I heard that chlorine dissolves fast but I would like to know it for sure if there can be other consequences to using this water.

JohnB
  • 111
  • 4
nsn
  • 351
  • 1
  • 2
  • 8

1 Answers1

11

You should make sure, before you use the water, that no chemicals have been added for a week (some say half a week), and assuming you've only used chlorine, it should be down to 1 part per million after that time, or even lower, which means yes, you can use it for irrigation purposes. If you can, check the ph, which should be between 7 and 8 before discharging the water onto planted areas. I'm also assuming there's no pump - sometimes salts can collect in the pumps and that might be an issue, but that's dependent, to some extent, on which cocktail of chemicals have been used to keep the water sterile. The link below gives more information - some of it is extra to requirements for your purposes, because it also deals with sunken pools:

http://www.watercasa.org/pdfs/pools_spas_4-1-08.pdf

Bamboo
  • 131,823
  • 3
  • 72
  • 162
  • Same link I found. I'd check that the ppm solids in the pool water is not too high after that week too. If you've been adding a lot of bleach/algicide etc all summer, you may have more salt buildup than is healthy. The bleach'll break down into chlorates, chloramines and eventually chlorides, but you don't want to be dumping 2500 ppm of chloride ions onto your rose bushes. PPM meters are cheap. Just compare the pool water to what comes out of your garden hose. Unless something funny has been done, you *should* be OK. – Wayfaring Stranger Aug 27 '15 at 11:44